Povenmire was born in San Diego, California on September 18, 1963,[1][2] and grew up in the city of Mobile, Alabama.[4] A child prodigy, he began drawing at age two; by the time he was ten, his work was displayed in local art shows.[5] His first efforts in animation included a series of flip books that he produced in his school text books.[6] As a child, Povenmire considered animator Chuck Jones his hero;[7] in a 2009 interview, he stated that "every drawing he [Jones] did was beautiful to look at and had so much energy in it".[8]Hayao Miyazaki was also an early influence.[9]

Soon after arriving at USC, he pitched Life is a Fish to Mark Ordesky, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan, the university newspaper. Ordesky first "basically brushed [him] off", but, after viewing Povenmire's portfolio, accepted the strip. Fish ran daily in the paper. Though the rapid pace left Povenmire afraid he was "running out of ideas", he never missed a deadline and made $14,000 a year through Fish merchandise, which included T-shirts, books, and calendars sold at the campus craft fair.[5] The discipline of regular production also helped teach Povenmire to "represent something in the least amount of lines".[6]

Tommy Chong was one of the first people to give Povenmire a job in the animation business, hiring him to do two minutes of animation for the film Far Out Man (1990).

Povenmire left USC[5] without finishing the degree requirements,[10] and used the money from Fish merchandise to fund a short-lived career as a street artist. His first professional animation commission came on the Tommy Chong project Far Out Man, for which Povenmire produced two minutes of animation. By age 24, Povenmire was freelancing on several animated television series, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.[5] In 1989, he appeared in a small role as a band member in Adam Sandler's first film, Going Overboard.[5]

In the 1990s, Povenmire secured a job as a character layout animator[12] on the hit animated series The Simpsons.[5][13] His desk placed him opposite Jeffery Marsh, another up-and-coming animator. They shared similar tastes in humor and music, and later became colleagues on other projects.[13]

Povenmire's experience, from both previous industry work and from his own projects, earned him respect at The Simpsons.[6] He worked on layout animation and collaborated on storyboard production for the series, recalling later that staff were handed pages of production notes and instructed to "Do the Brad Bird notes and any others that make sense."[8] He maintained a side interest in film, writing scripts[10] and the screenplay for a low-budget horror movie, Psycho Cop 2.[7][10] The movie's producers offered Povenmire the opportunity to direct the film, but its terms required that he quit The Simpsons. Povenmire chose to stay with The Simpsons, which he enjoyed and considered a better fit with his future ambitions.[10] Rif Coogan ended up directing the picture instead.[14]

"I could have just stayed at The Simpsonsad infinitum. I have friends there who were there when I was and are still working on the show. But animation is such that at the end of production they lay off all the artists and then at the end of post-production they bring all the artists back. I was looking at a two- or three-month downtime."

Work on The Simpsons involved an irregular schedule. The producers laid off the animation staff for two-to-three-month periods, and rehired the staff later in the production cycle. During one of these layoffs, Povenmire found a temporary job on the series Rocko's Modern Life,[10]Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production.[15][16] The show's creator, television newcomer Joe Murray, hired Povenmire solely on the strength of his Life is a Fish comic strips,[5] which proved he could both write and draw.[10]

Though Povenmire started on Rocko simply to occupy his downtime from The Simpsons, he found the greater creative freedom he enjoyed on his temporary job compelling, and quit The Simpsons to work on Rocko full-time. There, he reunited with Jeff Marsh, this time as a writing partner;[13] Marsh claimed the crew hoped Povenmire's neatness would offset his own sloppy storyboarding.[7] The pair developed a distinctive style characterized by characteristic musical numbers and chase scenes.[17] Povenmire and Marsh won an Environmental Achievement Award for a 1996 Rocko episode they had written.[2]

Povenmire later became a director on Family Guy,[18] starting with the season two episode, "Road to Rhode Island".[19] Creator Seth MacFarlane granted Povenmire substantial creative freedom. Povenmire recalled that MacFarlane would tell him "We've got two minutes to fill. Give me some visual gags. Do whatever you want. I trust you." Povenmire praised MacFarlane's management style for letting him "have [...] fun."[8] Povenmire brought realism and material from his own experiences to the visual direction of Family Guy.[20][21] For "One if By Clam, Two if By Sea" (August 1, 2001),[22] several characters demonstrate Fosse-like moves in prison. To correctly depict the moves, Povenmire asked color artist Cynthia MacIntosh, who had been a professional dancer, to strike poses so he could properly illustrate the sequence.[21] In the episode "To Love and Die in Dixie" (November 15, 2001),[23] Povenmire drew on his childhood in the Deep South to create and sequence a background scene in which the redneck character nonchalantly kicks a corpse into the nearby river.[20]

During Family Guy's brief cancellation, Povenmire was offered a job as storyboard director of the series SpongeBob SquarePants.[8][30] He wrote various musical numbers for the series, including "The Campfire Song Song" in "The Camping Episode" (April 3, 2004).[31][32]

"It wasn't like we pitched it to every network more than once. We pitched it to four different places. We'd get real close, they'd say no, so we'd put it back on the shelf for a couple of years, then—'I've got a pitch over at Cartoon Network—I'll dust it back off and pitch it to them; if they say no, I'll dust it off and pitch it to Nickelodeon.'"

In 1993, Povenmire and Marsh conceived the series Phineas and Ferb,[5] based on their similar experiences of childhood summers spent outdoors.[13] Povenmire spent 14–16 years pitching Phineas and Ferb to several networks.[8][13] Most rejected it as unfeasible for the complexity of its plots,[18] but Povenmire persevered, later observing "It was really the show we wanted to see: if this was on the air, I'd watch it, and I don't always feel that about every show I work on."[13] Even the Walt Disney Company initially rejected Povenmire's pitch, but asked to keep the proposal packet: "Usually that means they throw it in the trash later," Povenmire recalled.[5] Eventually Disney called Povenmire back with an acceptance, on the condition that he would produce an 11-minute pilot.[17] He called Marsh, who was living in England, to ask him if he would like to work on the pilot; Marsh accepted immediately and moved back to the United States.[18]

Instead of a conventional script, the pair pitched the pilot by recording reels of its storyboard, which Povenmire then mixed and dubbed to produce action and vocals. The network approved the show for a 26-episode season.[4][17] Povenmire left Family Guy to create the series.[33]

Povenmire and Marsh wanted to incorporate into Phineas and Ferb the kind of humor they had developed in their work on Rocko's Modern Life. They included action sequences and, with Disney's encouragement, featured musical numbers in every episode subsequent to "Flop Starz".[17] Povenmire described the songs as his and Marsh's "jab at immortality",[5] but the pair have earned two Emmy nominations for Phineas and Ferb songs to-date.[7] A third Emmy nomination, for the episode "The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein" (2008),[34] pitted the show against SpongeBob SquarePants,[35] although neither nominee received the award due to a technicality.[36] In 2010, Povenmire was nominated amongst several other Phineas and Ferb crew members for the Daytime Emmy Award for both "Outstanding Writing in Animation" and "Outstanding Original Song – Children’s and Animation" for their work on the show,[37] winning for "Outstanding Writing in Animation".[38]

The distinctive style of the animation legend Tex Avery influenced the show's artistic look. Like Avery, Povermire employed geometric shapes to build both the characters and the background. The style developed almost accidentally, with Povenmire's first sketch of title character, Phineas Flynn, which he produced while eating dinner with his family in a restaurant in South Pasadena, California. He doodled a triangle-shaped child on the butcher paper covering the table. He was so taken with sketch he tore it out, kept it, and used it as the prototype for Phineas and as the stylistic blueprint for the entire show.[18]

During his college years, Povenmire had performed with a band that played at clubs and bars across Los Angeles, California.[5] His current band, Keep Left, releases albums through Arizona University Recordings. Their second CD, Letters from Fielding, became available for download on aurec.com during 2004.[11] They have an official website maintained and updated by artist Larry Stone.[39] A 2004 email exchange about the website between Stone and Povenmire resulted in a "clever and twisted" series of comic strips drawn by the two, eventually moved to the website Badmouth.[39]